18G6.] Objections to the modern style of official Hindustani 



181 



nor literature, unless we choose to class under the latter head tho 

 laws and circulars of the Government, which, it must be confessed, are 

 rather dnll reading for the masses. 



In every way then I conclude that the encouragement of the style 

 in which our munshis delight, is most strongly to he deprecated. It 

 is a style of artificial and unnatural origin ; it is incapable of develop- 

 ment into an independent national language, ; it robs the Hindus of 

 their most glorious literary inheritance ; it is practically inconvenient, 

 being unfamiliar even to the educated classes, unless they have been 

 specially trained in it ; and it perpetuates ignorance by blotting out 

 the records of earlier civilization, and, having no literature of its own, 

 offers none in its place. The law has at all times and in all countries 

 been somewhat pedantic in its utterances, and if it is inevitable, let it 

 remain so ; but surely it is an unheard-of thing that legal phraseology 

 should be constituted the type of polite literature. 



Description of the ChandrareWidgurh near Sashtanee, Pergunnali 



Nyegur, Zillah Midnapore. — By W. J. Herschel, Esq., B. C. S. 



[Keceived 2nd April, 1866.] 



This very remarkable fort lies in the least known part of the district 

 of Midnapore, in the south-west corner of it. I came upon it acci- 

 dentally while returning from a tour into Morbhunj. 



It lies near the boundary of the district in the midst of what, twenty 

 years ago, was uninterrupted jungle, but what is now fast breaking 

 up into cultivation. It is a nearly square patch of thick tangled 

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